Doubts Raised Over Getting Sha Tin Link Open On Time

The MTR said on Friday that it was facing "many challenges" with getting the cross-harbour section of the Sha Tin-Central rail link up and running by early next year as planned.

The rail firm's divisional general manager James Chow told lawmakers at a railways subcommittee meeting in Legco that 96 percent of the HK$90-billion line's construction work had been completed, but it still needed to test and approve a new signalling system.

The firm postponed the introduction of the new system in September, after it discovered a fault that could route two trains to the same station at once.

Chow said the MTR should be able to put the system into use by March, adding the company is deploying more workers to the project.

But Roundtable lawmaker Michael Tien, a former chairman of the Kowloon-Canton Railway, expressed doubt about whether lost time could be made up, and predicted trains probably wouldn't run on the new line between Hung Hom and Admiralty until the third quarter of 2022.

"For the Shatin-Central Link to cross the harbour in the first quarter of 2022, they need to start testing the new signalling system live in September last year, because you need that much time to do it and then everything follows. There is no way to squeeze extra time out of it," he explained.

"If they don't start the testing within next month, they are going to run into the third quarter, they can't even make the second quarter [next year]."

Meanwhile, lawmakers are calling for the construction of the MTR's Northern Link project to be speeded up, saying it was unacceptable that the 11-kilometre line – that will connect the East Rail and West Rail lines in the northern New Territories – will take a decade to build.

The project, which will connect Kam Sheung Road with a new station at Kwu Tung, got the go-ahead from the Executive Council last month.

Michael Luk from the DAB and the Liberal Party's Frankie Yick also questioned if competition should be introduced in the hopes of lowering the project's HK$62 billion cost.

In response, transport minister Frank Chan said the government and independent consultants would assess the budget proposed by the rail firm.

He added he would also try to shorten the timeframe – but there were many factors in play, including geological conditions.

"You may think that the proposed alignment [of the Northern Link] here is already confirmed, [but] in fact when it comes to site investigation we may have to adjust the alignment. For instance, there may be an underground cavern," he said.